Always Learning, Always Creating Value

Mass Salt Effect

So if you’ve been living under a rock, you wouldn’t have heard that Mass Effect Andromeda is coming out tomorrow (23rd for unlucky countries).

This game bears the misfortune of having a wildly successful trilogy, IP and a frothy legion of fans and detractors. Many gamers have taken the opportunity to partake in the 10 hr pre-release trial offered by the Origin Access to be some of the first to experience this new chapter in the Mass Effect universe. The below comic acutely describes the opinion of the game right now:
One of the unique features of the Mass Effect trilogy was that your choices and decisions from previous games affected the story-line of the next. People grew incredibly attached to their character that they had played with, over the course of three titles. Without going too much into it, many players were turned off with the ending in Mass Effect 3 which resulted in the sacrifice of you, the main character. That, and producing a game of the same IP has increased everyone’s expectation resulting in the game being under an even bigger microscope. I was on Reddit today and found the following negative critiques of the game:

“A mammoth title, it delivers tons of great content, but hamstrings itself with a poor first few hours, a few horrible systems, and some uninspired scenarios.”

“Mass Effect: Andromeda is a gigantic Sci-Fi epic and brave restart for the series, that doesn’t reach the magic of its predecessors.”

“Mass Effect: Andromeda spends a lot of time not really feeling like a Mass Effect game. If anything, it feels like a spin-off — the sort of thing created by another studio that’s unsure about what direction to take it.”

“Marred by inconsistency and in need of a polish pass, this vast new sci-fi frontier nonetheless rewards dedicated exploration.”
I am personally unfazed by these critiques: everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I personally loved Mass Effect 3 and the ending; I didn’t know whether there would be a future title that followed the same story-line as ME3 or whether they would create a whole new story like they did in ME:A. I like to remember: those that are unhappy with a game will cry the loudest, while the ones that love the game are too busy playing it, to spend time talking about it on social media.